A ‘Gold’ in recognition

Every year, the much visited travel website TripAdvisor asks its global readership to rate the
some cultural gems immediately jump to mind, such as The Louvre in Paris, The Metropolitan Museum of Art gracing New York’s Central Park, and the home to Diego Velázquéz’s Las Meninas, El Prado.

But do you think of a Botero painting and a gold Tayrona bracelet when there are so many rare antiquities on exhibit in Russia and the United Kingdom? It appears so, after 200 million who clicked on the site’s virtual contest counted two of Bogotá’s museums among the very best on the planet.

The Museo del Oro of the Banco de la República (Gold Museum) was chosen on the list of “25 Best Museums of the World” and the Museo Botero (Botero Museum) occupied place No.6 in museums of South America. At the top of the world ranking was the Art Institute of Chicago, the National Museum of Anthropology (Museo Nacional de Antropologia), in Mexico City, and the State Hermitage Museum and Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, Russia.

The survey and subsequent ranking is a truly democratic one, in which the museum-going public rates the overall state of the quality of the exhibitions, and the general services each museum can provide. Even though the Louvre is the world’s most visited museum, it ranks only No.19 on the TripAdvisor list, surpassed by lesser-known entities such as the Musee d’Orsay in the same city, and ranked No.6 or the Vasa Museum of Stockholm at No.13.

The St. Petersburg-based Hermitage beat out the Florence Academy of Fine Arts and Paris’ Musée d’Orsay to take first place in the European “Top 25.” The Hermitage is one of the oldest and largest in the world, founded in 1764 by Catherine the Great. Currently, the 350 halls of the museum boast more than 3 million objects dating from the Stone Age through to the modern era.
So, well done to two of our capital’s museums, receiving well-deserved recognition from an international museum-going audience, and a travel website which generates much-needed opinion.
best museums under the title: “Trav- eler’s Choice Awards.” Of course